Port Clinton-based ‘Tin Goose’ takes flight over Titusville

The ground crew surrounds a Ford Trimotor before it takes off on another tour. EAA officials sold sightseeing rides aboard the Ford Tri-Motor 5-AT-B at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum in Titusville.(Photo: Craig Bailey/ FLORIDA TODAY)

“I would rather fly on this airplane at 100 miles an hour than fly on a 737 at 500 miles an hour. It’s just the experience,” said Les Boatright, president of the Experimental Aviation Association’s “Smilin’ Jack” Chapter 866 in Titusville.

“To me, the modern-day air travel experience has taken all the fun and enjoyment out of air travel. You know, in the 1920s and ’30s, people dressed up, put on their finest clothes. And it was an experience to be experienced,” he said.

The Liberty Aviation Museum of Port Clinton, Ohio, purchased the plane in 2014. Port Clinton is a key flight hub to a cluster of U.S. and Canadian islands in Lake Erie. For decades, Ford Tri-Motors ferried freight, food, mail and people from Port Clinton to and from communities such as Put-in-Bay, Middle Bass Island and Kelleys Island.

Proceeds from tickets sold for sightseeing rides in Florida aboard the Ford Tri-Motor 5-AT-B over the weekend will benefit the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum in Titusville, Boatright said.

The historic aircraft will continue its Florida tour from March 22-25 at Tallahassee International Airport, April 5-8 at Gainesville Regional Airport, and April 19-22 at Ocala International Airport before visits in Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Billed as the world’s first mass-produced airliner, the Ford Tri-Motor was featured in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” A total of 199 were built from 1926 to 1933 to haul passengers, mail and freight.

The Port Clinton-based specimen flew its first flight on Dec. 1, 1928, and was dubbed “City of Wichita” by Transcontinental Air Transport, a predecessor of TWA.

Later, this Tin Goose flew passengers with Grand Canyon Airlines during the 1930s; got registered in Nicaragua and Mexico in the ’40s; sustained damages when it veered into a ditch during the ’50s; underwent restoration by the founder of Harrah’s Hotel and Casinos in the ’60s; flew a Nevada-to-New Jersey commemorative flight for TWA during the ’70s; sold at auction for $1.5 million to an Idaho company in the ’80s, and got stored by the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in Oregon during the ’90s.

Dave Ross boasts almost 50 years of flying experience, ranging from flight instruction to towing banners to dropping skydivers. The EAA volunteer pilot has logged about 400 hours flying Ford Tri-Motors across the country — with about 900 landings.

“Well, it’s kind of like driving an old truck without power steering. Everything works real well. You can get everything done you want, only it’s up to you: manpower,” Ross said, standing near the tarmac.

Ross started taking media and visitors on flights above Titusville and the Indian River Lagoon on Thursday afternoon. During pre-flight safety briefings, EAA Chapter 866 member Billy Mehaffey demonstrated how to buckle the plane’s seat belts.

“These are the old-timey buckles. Since nobody’s a millennial here, I don’t have to worry about it,” he said of the required technique.

Mehaffey also advised passengers to duck like “submariners” to avoid bonking their foreheads while entering the plane’s oval-shaped doorway. The cabin accommodates 10 passengers in five rows of two seats, separated by an aisle roughly 1 foot wide.

“This is not like the 747 or a 737, you know. This thing moves around, jostles you,” Mehaffey said.

Ross’s wife, Patti, headed the ticket-sale table inside the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum. When not touring with the Tin Goose, the couple operates a 1,100-acre grain farm outside Wakeman, Ohio. She said 17 Ford Tri-Motors remain in existence, five of which are flyable.

“Low and slow: As my husband says, it does everything at 80. It takes off at 80, it cruises at 80 and it lands at 80,” Patti Ross said.